


Down in the Deep

by significantowl



Category: Merlin (BBC), Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-14
Updated: 2010-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He thinks of her as a goddess now, but doesn't tell her so.</i> (post-s2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down in the Deep

He told her she looked like a princess once. He'll never forget her face in that moment, the way it had crumbled, taking a fragile new world with it.

He thinks of her as a goddess now, but doesn't tell her so. He's not sure she would like that any better. But it doesn't stop him from believing it truth. He has glimpsed Avalon and he knows that water is both death and life and a gateway between the two, and those that live it and breathe it and command it for any time at all are power.

He worships her with his body, long and slow.

They laugh together above the surface. He tells her about Gaius' porridge, so hard he may have broken a tooth yesterday - _No look, is it chipped?_ \- and her amusement rings out through the trees and hills, sweet and (he can't help but think) divine.

He keeps her in the circle of his arms, her back to his chest, presses soft kisses from her ear down to her shoulder, slipping one under the lace of that beautiful dress. Sometimes he calls a mist to hide them from view. Sometimes they are bright and visible and unrepentant.

Below, where he breathes by her art, he whispers his secrets. Things he is, things he has done, things he is afraid of, and sometimes all three are one. He knows what he is now, and he tells her this; every day he knows one more thing he is willing to do if he believes he must, and he confesses them each, down in the deep.

He ends with his forehead pressed to hers, always. Says, _Remember when I told you I loved you because of who you let me be?_ The secret is not the words: it is that he understands them now, the ways they are beautiful, that they are selfish and ugly. All the ways that they are truth.

She kisses them out of his mouth, hard, kisses like more than _yes_. Kisses like understanding.

Like they are the same.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Down in the Deep (The Index of Refraction)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/389760) by [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer)




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